The Program

While many initiatives exist to create the strongest academic programs, hands-on materials and equipment-base for university studies to support outstanding science and engineering degrees, there is still a major issue that drastically reduces Science & Engineering potential of our country – the limited focus on K-12 education.

See The Change USA specifically addresses the K-12 problem to rapidly reduce the knowledge gap in qualified science & engineering professionals in the Colorado region and in the Nation.

See The Change USA is the only program today in the States where key science and engineering disciplines, including physics and computer programming, are envisioned to be introduced from an early age, with the main focus on middle school.

Curriculum Development

Teaching Physics or Chemistry or Computer Programming as separate disciplines in middle school requires the development of the following components:

Curriculum: a class-by-class sequence of topics to teach

Specialized textbooks or extensive teacher handouts

Student handouts

A complete set of problems to solve during the class time, with solutions and detailed explanations

Homework for each class

A bank of tests and quizzes

Charts and diagrams to show the students during the class time

Power point presentations which would assist the teacher in the teaching process

Detailed description of hands-on demonstrations for each class

Professional Development Program

The Professional Development program is the second important component in implementing teaching fundamental science disciplines as separate subjects starting from middle school. Our analysis of physics teacher preparation programs in other countries shows that teachers are running through a few semesters of education courses, a few semesters of psychology, a few semesters of teaching methodology, subject study, problems solving methodology, history of science, and others.

Physics Labs and Hands-on Activity

The best way to excite and teach young students is through demonstrations and hands-on experience. Our curriculum starts each class with a demonstration and builds the rest of the class, including problem solving and discussions, around the concepts learned from that experiment.

Standards Creation

Gathering requirements from industry leaders and turning them into K-12 science standards is a significant part of this program.

Advanced program for extremely successful students

This program provides the most successful students with specialized scholarships to run through a set of advanced physics, engineering, and computer programming classes at specialized facilities. We anticipate that these students will be the first candidates to connect with sponsoring companies to ensure their pathway to S&E programs in colleges and future transition into the engineering workforce.

“After experiencing this organization’s work first-hand and its impact on student and teacher content knowledge I am impressed with the depth of knowledge and competency that students demonstrate after being taught the curriculum.”
– David H. Khaliqi,
CSTEME Director